Bobby BradfordPracticality, Responsibility & Creativity, Jazz West

The first time I called up Bobby Bradford for an interview, I was primed for
a lofty discussion about creativity and art. But a mundane event stalled that
discourse. Just when we'd started speaking, a lizard darted into Bradford's
kitchen from the patio outside. Bradford was called over to help his family
strategize how to guide it back outdoors. "Bear with me for a moment while we
find a creative solution to this minor family emergency," the Knight of Small
Reptiles said, with dry humor.

This momentary derailment of our discussion may seem a mere trifle, but the
episode actually says a lot about Bobby Bradford and his creative pursuits.

Despite his extraordinary talent as a jazz trumpeter, Bradford has always put
his family's well-being first, eschewing the standard jazzman's lifestyle to
preserve domestic tranquility. He's probably one of the few musicians who's
turned down numerous invitations to work in New York, the center of the jazz
universe -- yet he's thrived, nevertheless.

"I can understand why Bradford stayed in L.A," says critic and former Pomona
College faculty member Stanley Crouch, who made a migration to the Big Apple
himself. "But I wish he had moved to the East Coast. Had Bradford come to New
York, I think his presence would have changed the course of the trumpet in
avant-garde jazz."

If no one can actually estimate the jazz world's loss, many can appreciate
Southern California's gain -- Bradford has been a vital catalyst of
adventurous
music on the West Coast for more than 25 years, and is a local treasure at
Pomona College, where he teaches jazz history and directs jazz ensembles.

But Bradford has been forced to make some tough decisions in forging his
particular creative path. He's reflected on those choices so much that he
often speaks with a novelist's uber-awareness of himself as a protagonist in
his own life. He was born in 1934 in Cleveland, Mississippi. "My music is
deeply rooted in my early childhood there," Bradford says. "I'd go down to
the Chinese dry goods store, where a wandering guitar player would sit on the
front porch. He'd stick a board off the porch, and perch a little wooden doll
there. I'd sit there for hours watching him sing songs and make that doll
dance."

Aware that black musicians often try to establish credibility with apocryphal
claims to church origins, Bradford asserts the authenticity of his gospel
background. "I really grew up in a genuine Baptist area," he says. "You know,
with a capella gospel singers, with church music. I used to hear male
quartets, and the rhythm of that music, their stomping to the music, that
bass part, the rhythm in the voices. That stuff is a big part of my music,
because it runs almost as deep as my blood."

Bradford's family moved to Dallas in 1946. "My father listened to big bands,
but I wasn't really drawn to that kind of jazz, the swing style," he says. "I
wanted to play music when I heard the beboppers: Charlie Parker and Dizzy
Gillespie and Miles Davis and Fats Navarro, the beboppers had it going on."
Bradford took up the cornet in 1949. While he practiced his bebop chops, he
supported himself playing in r&b bands with the likes of Buster Smith and Ray
Charles.

During the same period another Texan, Ornette Coleman, was putting in some
time in r&b bands as well. In the summer of 1953, Bradford moved to Los
Angeles where he ran into Coleman on the red trolley. They played together
and worked out some freethinking notions for a new jazz music, but before any
recordings were made, Bradford was drafted into the Air Force. The trumpeter
Don Cherry took his place in Coleman's group, and it was Cherry who went on
to make history with Coleman on recordings like The Shape of Jazz to
Come and
This Is Our Music.

After his military stint, Bradford went back to Texas to finish his
bachelor's degree. Bradford was invited to take part in Coleman's seminal
1960 Free Jazz recording session, but he was too busy studying at the
time,
so another trumpeter, Freddie Hubbard, had to take his place. When Bradford
did join Coleman's group in 1961, it coincided with a period when Coleman
refused to work unless he was well paid -- which meant that the group rarely
played gigs and did not record. [Bradford did eventually record with Coleman,
on the latter's 1972 album Science Fiction.--ed.]

Bradford's tenure with Coleman plays out like a collection of near misses
with fame. But Bradford was intent upon supporting his young family, and when
he graduated from college in 1963, the Bradfords moved back to Los Angeles
where Bradford planned to obtain a stable teaching position. "But when I got
to L.A. I couldn't find work right away," Bradford remembers. "So I first
worked as a claims adjuster in workman's comp." He pauses a moment and says,
"My life is reading like dime-store novel, isn't it?"

Self Determination Music

Bradford did find teaching work, first at CalArts and then at Pomona. Just as
significantly, in the mid '60s Bradford met John Carter, a composer and
clarinetist who was also from Texas. The two began an artistic association
that would be the most significant one of Bradford's career. They shared a
musical aesthetic -- Bradford's bluesy, flowing trumpet complemented Carter's
angular woodwind flights. But the two also shared an artistic philosophy and
were determined to explore those ideas on their own terms.

After working together for several years, their efforts seemed to pay off
when producer Bob Thiele came to Los Angeles and commissioned Carter and
Bradford to record two records for his Flying Dutchman label in 1970 and
1971. "He came to us, and at that point, we were getting such good
reviews
from those records, we said, 'This is going to take off,'" Bradford says.
"But nothing happened. Our careers sat there like a big toad. We got jazz
record of the year in Japan and got five stars in one jazz magazine and four
and a half in another one and we thought that we were on our way. But
everything went right back to where it was."

Basically, it all came down to geography -- promoters didn't want to dig down
into their pockets to pay a musician's airfare to the East Coast. "Bob Thiele
told us that if we were to get anything more done than we were doing then, we
should move to New York. Neither of us was willing to do that."

By the mid '70s, Stanley Crouch had joined Bradford on the Pomona faculty.
Crouch enlisted Bradford to compose tunes for his musical plays and also
tapped the trumpeter for his band, Black Music Infinity, which included
"Black Arthur" Blythe, David Murray (Pomona class of '77), Mark Dresser,
James Newton and Walter Lowe. Crouch appreciated Bradford's musical
flexibility: "Most of
those avant-garde guys who came forward after Ornette Coleman could only play
a very narrow vocabulary," Crouch says. "They couldn't really play the
trumpet. Don Cherry and Don Ellis were two exceptions, and of course
Bradford, who had studied the whole tradition. He was special."

The convergence of all these experimental musicians fostered an active
community in L.A., and especially at Pomona. Don Palmer (Pomona, '77) is now
a program director at the New York State Council of the Arts and also works
as a music
critic. Palmer remembers a lively scene on campus in the '70s: "I had a radio
show on the college station and quickly learned that some of the same music I
was spinning was actually being created on campus. It was very exciting."

But Palmer says the music sometimes challenged listeners: "I booked a film
series and concerts at the Smudgepot. Once, we had a performance with
Bradford, David Murray and James Newton. People wanted their money back when
it wasn't pretty flute music."

Off campus, John Carter opened Rudolph's, and in 1977 Bradford and Carter
opened a loft-like club called the Little Bighorn in Altadena, with sessions
open to the public. As Crouch recalls, "Bradford inspired a lot of guys and
was a force, though in a very understated way." Bradford was perhaps too
helpful. One by one, he watched his younger comrades move to the East
Coast -- first Blythe, then Crouch, Murray, Newton and others left to pioneer
the New York loft movement. Carter and Bradford [who together recorded all
five of Carter's suites tracing the African diaspora, collectively titled
"Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music>" --
ed.] again considered moving, but stayed behind. "I had a family to feed and
couldn't see myself sleeping on
someone's couch," Bradford says. A few years later, in 1984, Bradford
recorded an album with a title many of his colleagues found all too
appropriate: Lost in L.A.

Creativity in Teaching

Bradford drafted one of his former students, Mark Dresser, to record on Lost
in L.A. In the end, it's through his students that Bradford may make his
most significant contribution to the jazz world. Dresser, for example, is one
of the top bassists in the world; his bold yet grounded expression makes him
a popular sideman, and he keeps busy leading his own groups as well. Dresser
has made it one of his lifetime ambitions to pay tribute to Bradford; the
bassist wrote a composition titled "For Bradford" and has recorded five
versions of the tune to date.

"He is the Real McCoy," Dresser says. "That's especially evident to me now
after encountering other free jazz players. He showed me the whole tradition.
Not just musical information, but also the musical attitude. He loved the
bebop players, like Bud Powell and Fats Navarro, but having played with
Ornette, he was a first-generation source for how to approach the new music
too. He really had it, the whole spectrum."

Bradford claims that he himself is the real beneficiary of the
student-teacher relationship and says that after 30 years, teaching still
renews him: "In any environment where you're not just recycling repetitious
stuff, you'll get new insights as you're teaching, and from those you teach.
Not a year goes by that a student doesn't come up with something really
insightful. Even after all these years."

No doubt one of his more insightful students was saxophonist David Murray,
who studied with Bradford throughout the '70s, including his time at Pomona.
Murray is arguably Bradford's most successful protege, and is certainly his
most prolific -- Murray may be the most frequently recorded jazz musician of
the
last 50 years. Bradford, however, is characteristically self-effacing about
his influence on the saxophonist. "David played in an ensemble here, and he
just needed somebody to point him in the right direction," Bradford says.
"I'd suggest he listen to some musician, or check out a particular record."
With some prodding, Bradford finally makes a slight admission. "Well, I guess
he did get some jazz history from me."

Bradford's modesty notwithstanding, his comments do raise the issue of
whether one can effectively teach jazz musicianship. Jazz improvisation is
basically musical storytelling, with the soloist stringing together rhythms
and melodies into a coherent narrative -- all in real time. Many older
practitioners of the art form claim this impromptu sound sculpting is
something that can't be taught. Bradford agrees with them, but only to a
point -- you can identify certain characteristics that enable
invention, he
says, in jazz and in all creative pursuits.

"I don't think you can teach creativity, exactly," Bradford explained. "You
can tell people what you do to be creative and show them what others do. And
there are some nuts and bolts -- you can say these things are present: One --
You
have to have a healthy irreverence for what everybody else is doing; two --
you
have to be willing to take risks; and three --you have to be really confident
that what you're doing is for you. This is true not just for jazz, but for
any kind of creative environment."

Bradford is himself an embodiment of all the above. "Bobby's an exceedingly
brilliant man who has great ability to communicate ideas," Crouch says. "He
truly understands what he's teaching. I think most students who have him as a
teacher will probably never be in the presence of a musician greater than he
is. He's a special person in that way."

Taking the road less traveled has not landed Bradford much fame -- no major
label recording deals [his work appears on Black Saint, Gramavision, Nessa
and oather independent labels -- ed.] and not even a minor spot in Ken
Burns' Jazz
documentary. But when Bradford tells me he has no regrets about the way
things have worked out, I believe him. If he'd heeded the siren call of the
prime time, he might have crashed up on ego's rocky shores and wrecked his
creativity. At best he would have adapted to an already existing scene. At
Pomona, and in Los Angeles at large, Bobby Bradford has nurtured a
community -- and he's shown that feeding your family doesn't mean you can't
flourish creatively.

Michelle Mercer is a freelance writer who lives in New York.
Her articles about music have appeared in a range of publications,
including The New York Times and the Village Voice, and her
musical commentaries air on National Public Radio's All Things
Considered.

Nice profile of Bobby Bradford's career by Michelle Mercer was interesting but needs some clarification: the "red trolley"where Bradford meet Ornette was actually called "the red car" and somewhat a resembled a train and ran on the same tracks! Personal observation! Rudolph's was a personal residence John Carter didn't open it! Sessions were held there, I've seen them.

As for the Flying Dutchman recordings: "Flight For Four" has a 1969 copyright date. "Self Determination Music"second release has 1970(C)date. Furthermore they were recorded on Revelation records as "The New Art Ensemble" a West Coast company.